January 2015

Eight days into 2015 and damn if it’s already a great year… Here’s wishing all of my readers a wonderful, safe, erotic, joyous and sexy next 365 days. My resolutions remain to spend more time with those I love, less time on airplanes and continue to be the healthiest Benjamin I can be. Keeping it simple is not always a bad thing.

Cold weather brings people wanting to head to warmer climates. Over the next couple of months, I’m seeing a lot of my very favorite island Key West, a trip to the Maldives, diving in the Cayman Islands and a return visit to Maui. Also sneaking into NYC for a lightening quick weekend to catch John Cameron Mitchell returning to Broadway’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch. An event I’m actually pretty jazzed about is a Q&A with playwright/author Terrence McNally, along with some performances from some of his biggest hits. I had a chance a few years back to sit in a small audience with Stephen Sondheim and it was riveting being able to ask very detailed questions about his catalog of work. It’s rare you get an in-person, inside look at how classic shows like West Side Story, Gypsy and Sweeney Todd are put together, especially from the man who created them.

I’ll also be heading down to Key West again in April for Kathy Griffin’s first appearance on the island. That should be fun.

Signing off for now, but big changes are coming to BenjaminNicholas.com and 15MinutesMore. I really haven’t needed the promo that both sites generate for quite awhile now, so I thought it was time they transitioned into something else… Something more fun, much more interesting. As much as I love this blog, it’s not exactly what people ‘do’ anymore. Blogs are far too wordy for most people to spend time reading, while services like Twitter and Instagram flourish. Small chunks of snark, forcing wit on a short fuse. I find that Tweeting for me is the perfect antidote for wanting to share with the world without feeling the need to fill a lot of white space. Over time (12 years to be exact), 15MM became more of a job than an enjoyed travelogue. It’s why I have mostly stopped posting in great detail and just keep posts at a congenial arm’s length.

My realization was that, ultimately, those who want to know me can schedule time and meet with me in person. And those who already know me don’t need a blog to validate who I am or what I’m up to. Along those same lines, I vetted most of my online presence and took down a fair amount of useless ads that were floating around on periphery sites. Currently, the only sites that I support are sponsorship with RentMen and ads on Men4RentNow and Rentboy. Will likely cut off Rentboy in the very near future, as it’s a glitchy, badly-coded, mostly useless site.

Shameless product plug: If you want bluetooth ear buds for nearly-weightless workout music, I can’t recommend BlueBuds more highly. This is the model I’ve been using for a month now and they’re the best I’ve ever owned… And totally waterproof for those of you who sweat like Kirstie Alley at a Baskin-Robbins when you do cardio.

You can keep track of me these days mainly on Twitter, a semi-updated PHOTOBLOG and through my archive of images. Some of what I say is off-color, but in the end, I’d rather be funny and honest than politically correct. You’ve been warned. *wink*